Firebrands: Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet Age

Book Description

This book explains digital branding and how to implement it in the current marketplace.

Download Description

This book explains digital branding and how to implement it in the current marketplace.

Customer Reviews:

DOUG MILLSTIEN IS OUT OF THIS WORLD .......2007-08-07

This person cant write if his life depended on it, i read it and now used it for a door stop. I wouldnt recommend this to anyone. I might use it if hes lucky for my son to sit on at the dinner table.

Setting your brand on fire........2001-06-09

There are so many books on the market that discuss the concept of 'brand' from so many different points of view, that it's difficult to sort out the good from the bad. This is one of the good ones.

Moon and Millison define the basic concepts around brand. They explain in clear buzzword-light language what influences the growth and positioning of a brand. Finally, they provide ample and well-explained pointers to further reading to help understand some of their basic ideas more clearly.

As a consultant working for a systems integrator, one of the things that impressed me the most was the focus on execution. Many books about branding seem to imply that the technical details are irrelevant to brand success, but _Firebrands_ makes the point that a relationship with a customer only has brand value when supported by appropriate policies, training, and technical infrastructure. This is a message that can't be, IMO, repeated often enough.

Well worth the time to read.

my review.......2001-03-08

I have read Firebrands and found it extremely useful. As a systems integrator in St. Louis, I have used this book to help my clients understand the importance of a technical infrastructure in building a vibrant brand.... Mind you, this is not a 60 second brand manager book.

Not Hype! A System for Reality...and innovation........2001-03-05

Firebr@nds is not a bedside book, it's a cookbook, a tool for being AT CAUSE when it comes to building successful, powerful communications for the internet.

As a Technology Interface Architect , the building of brand into the interaction of the product is vital to it's success.

My clients over the past 12 years have been besieged by what appears to them this mysterious thing out there that will grow over some process, that we will somehow invoke, and it will be successful if the powers that be are on our side.

This book makes it all very clear, while eliciting sympathy for all of us who have built brands. A genuine appreciation for its complexity is gained as you read a systemization of brandbuilding in Firebr@ands.

Moon has given us a thorough and deep taxonomy for building the brand from many different pragmatic angles. The dramatic distinctions in language make it easy to use the language as a tool in any company when it comes to educating organizations in building brand.

This is a book that I will return to over and over again as I help my clients grow their products into the future. It was a very brave, and necessary book to write. BRAVO!!!!

Beyond the Frontiers - A genetic approach to the Brand.......2001-03-01

As the Chief Technical Officer of a Texas based e-services and print communication firm, I live in this interactive brandspace on a daily basis. The problem with this brave new world of pixels is simply that much is said and much is written but little intelligent communication occurs. I find the innovative and far reaching approach taken by Michael Moon to be the de facto foundation for the next "big thing".

The approach that one must take to these new media spaces and channels is not readily discernible from the clearly defined trails blazed in the more traditional areas of branding. This new territory is as different as the Earth is from the Moon [no pun intended]. The book travels beyond the areas marked as "unknown - there be dragons here" and opens a clear and understandable path into formerly mysterious areas.

What we need out here in the field is less hype and more substance. Firebrands is a rational, ground breaking treatise on the evolution of Branding. This is a pivotal work that serves as a wonderful deskside companion, as indispensible to me as my spell checker or my browser.

Michaels' best practices mental evolution from the time of the Jeff Martin led Digital Brand Building Seminars of the mid-90's to this opus show an extraordinary depth and breadth of thought and research . The Firebrands book is the Gray's Anatomy of Brand "science".

As my company moves forward with ground breaking, market defining services in the area of brand guaranty we will continue to consult the Firebrands roadmap. We anxiously await any follow-up materials that might come from this mind trust.

Amazon.com

Former director of the Well, recent consultant to America Online, and current director of community development for Salon Magazine, Figallo knows what it takes to create a true community in cyberspace and what kinds of mistakes will torpedo the effort. Figallo believes that community comes from people, and so he begins by focusing on the human element. He writes about the groups that form online communities and how a community builder can foster the process. Figallo includes a great section on building a quality online staff. While he keeps technical aspects in perspective, Figallo doesn't shortchange them--he fully discusses types of interfaces and technical tools.

Figallo's discussion of the business side of a community is refreshingly hype-free. He provides excellent information on revenue models and support strategies. He further shows the advantages businesses can gain from creating or supporting online communities, plus what types of expectations are unrealistic. He believes, for example, that creating online communities is not a reasonable way to directly boost sales or provide a highly profitable income stream. He does show, however, that it can offer major corporate advantages in the same way that good public relations or other indirect marketing activities do. And while Figallo never claims that there's an easy formula for building the type of online feeling that brings people back again and again, he demonstrates with both theory and real-world examples how dedicated community builders can pull it off. --Elizabeth Lewis

Book Description

A detailed, easy-to-follow recipe for planning, developing, and maintaining a successful Web community. With a refreshingly practical perspective, this book explores the principles and techniques of hosting a Web community that allows your business to interact and build relationships with more customers than ever before. The book lays out a step-by-step plan for getting the project off the ground by showing how to define purpose, establish member profiles, incorporate custom site features, organize marketing events, and much more.

Customer Reviews:

Relationships are Key.......2001-11-04

Figallo appears to be providing his own model for web community success, which is built on building meaningful relationships... between "you" (the site owner/designer/manager/maintainer) and the people who visit your site, as well as between the site visitors themselves. "Meaningful relationships, far more than size, determine the success of online communities." He provides a lot of practical advice, and it's an easy read. My only complaint is that his WELL experience seems to have biased him toward WELL-like communities...he focuses mostly on the social, relationship-building aspects of web forums, chat and the like, as if everyone looking to build a web community should be striving to create a Salon/Cafe type place.

Excellent!.......2001-04-30

Cliff writes an excellent book for those who are truly looking to build and Host (yes, Host is the correct term as in being the Host of a party!) an online community. This book takes you through all of the scenarios of building, growing and managing an online community. This is not a technical book about building the backend of community systems - it is a book on the human/social side of online communities. Congrats to Mr. Figallo on writing a book dedicated to the subject.

Good history book.......2000-07-27

This is a good history book for those who feel a need to read up on the roots of Internet communities as we know them. The author was head of The WELL.

For those who need practical advice on how to create an online community today, the book by Amy Jo Kim is more useful.

This book was very disappointing........2000-06-13

It uses the word Hosting in the title, so I'm thinking it means Hosting, like "Webmaster" material. It speaks in general, non-technical terms for a day trader or something, in fact, the whole time I'm thinking "what is the guy talking about." Where are the details? Why aren't they talking about technologies i.e. Languages, Scripts, e-commerce engines, application servers, web servers, job price assessment.

The book is very out-dated, and is written for very non-technical people, therefore does not offer anything to technical users trying to get a general (big picture) look at being an in depth webmaster/hosting engineer. I was suckered by the title and the reviews, both were very misleading.

Do not waste you money. I recommend an e-business or e-commerce book.

Jason

A must read book.......1999-11-28

A must read book for planning, developing, and maintaining a Web community. Cliff Figallo has a vast experience on this area and it shows his expertise in a easy to read book with rich and useful content.

Average customer rating:

Invaluable Advice
Very Useful Wisdom
Practical and refreshing
Very boastful title; little new substance
Much-needed guidance

Making Rain: The Secrets of Building Lifelong Client Loyalty
Andrew Sobel
Manufacturer: Wiley
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471264598

Book Description

Professionals who work with clients or large accounts can create lifetime relationships based on these well-researched secrets. Based drawing from extensive interviews with client executives, Making Rain offers a series of provocative insights on how to shed the expert-for-hire label and develop long-term advisory relationships. Exploding the popular myth of the "Rainmaker," a dated and dysfunctional figure that clients no longer welcome, Andrew Sobel argues that any professional can learn to "make rain" on an ongoing basis with existing clients by developing a special set of skills, attitudes, and strategies. These innovative tips and techniques from a recognized leader in the field of professional services will enable any consultant, salesperson, or service professional to create enduring client loyalty.

Customer Reviews:

Invaluable Advice.......2006-05-27

As someone new to the consulting game, I needed a bit of guidance. After 15 years of teaching in high school classrooms, I have moved on to teaching teachers through a consulting company. It's been fun but challenging as my entire world up until now has been academia. So, a fellow consultant suggested this to me and I read it. It did me a world of good.

I can't say it answered all my questions; however, it is very good for giving a good overview of the life of a consultant. It looks at both the big picture--growing a business through gaining and keeping clients--and the small picture--practical tips on how to deal with individual clients. But what really appealed to me was his apparent willingness to be honest. He backed up his claims with experience (both his own and that of his colleagues) and he didn't shy away from pointing out how both consultants and clients can fail. He's not afraid to tell someone he's going to walk away from a contract.

I'm too green in my career at this point to appreciate all of Mr. Sobel's words. It would be worth coming back to this book later as I gain experience. Still, I'm already seeing more and more of the truth of his advice as I work from day to day. I can't say if Mr. Sobel has all the answers, but he clearly has valuable things to say and I would recommend it to anyone who works in a client-based job.

Very Useful Wisdom.......2004-06-19

This is a subtle book which contains a lot of wisdom about building client and customer relationships. It's a well written and engaging read. The premise is that traditional "sometimes wrong but never in doubt" rainmakers are increasingly dysfunctional in service organizations, whose clients demand value-added in the very first meeting. They are too sales-focused, they are in-and-out, and they don't bring enough content or client knowledge to early client meetings. The alternative is to teach every professional to make a bit of rain every day or every week. Each chapter looks at a different skill or strategy which will help readers "make rain" with their
clients. Chapter three is useful because it summarizes the advisor skills which are set out in Sobel's superb first book, Clients For Life. Other chapters cover topics such as rapidly building trust; adding core, surprise, and personal value to relationships; exercising the mindset of independent
wealth; and developing institutional mechanisms to "make rain" at the firm level. I think Making Rain appeals to a sophisticated reader, with its engaging anecdotes about client relationships and several chapters about historical figures who were great makers of rain (for example, Benjamin Franklin and the Welsh mystic, Merlin). This is an excellent read.

Practical and refreshing.......2003-11-04

There are very few worthwhile books about building client relationships, and this is definitely one of them. Sobel's main focus is how you de-commoditize yourself in increasingly competitive service markets. What I like is that he doesn't pretend to offer a grand strategy or one-size-fits-all prescription, but rather a series of thoughtful ideas for distinguishing yourself from the pack. These include thinking holistically about your "relationship capital"; the seven attributes of client advisors; the mindset of "independent wealth"; and some interesting history about great client advisors. The case studies/anecdotes are educational and often funny, and the writing is excellent. The chapters are short and easy to read.

Very boastful title; little new substance.......2003-10-23

While Mr. Sobe's premise is interesting -- client relationships are developed through the sequence: expert-inner circle-trusted advisor; his approach to following that path is filled with clichés (e.g. client loyalty = value + trust + going the extra mile) and generic terms (e.g. becoming an expert requires you to: (1) do it faster; (2) do it better; (3) be different; (3) be better prepared ...). He continuously uses terms such as trust, integrity, rapport, but fails to put them together into coherent algorithms or work programs to allow the reader to understand how to work through the author's "expert-inner circle-trusted advisor" paradigm.

Nothing new here.

Much-needed guidance.......2003-02-21

I just received this book and I've already read some of the chapters twice. Making Rain is full of practical ideas for how to increase your effectiveness at building client relationships and keeping clients for life. Sobel's concepts are fresh and highly original, and they are supported by client interviews, contemporary anecdotes, and fascinating historical profiles of people like Ben Franklin, who used humor to disarm and influence both his friends and adversaries. In my own business I've worked with clients for many years, and virtually everything in this book rings true for me. What's particularly valuable is the "how to" and the detailed ideas and strategies that Sobel sets out. Making Rain is well-written, easy to read, and quite funny in places. Anyone in business could pick up a handful of powerful tips on improving client retention from this book (one of the last chapters is "Managing Clients in Uncertain Times," which has a lot of useful reminders in it). If you work with either individual or corporate clients, Making Rain provides much-needed guidance.

Average customer rating:

Building Customer Loyalty
JoAnna Brandi
Manufacturer: WALK THE TALK Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1885228414

Book Description

Ever ask the question: "How many customers do we lose every year?" Chances are you haven't. Most businesses are so busy trying to get new customers in the front door that they pay far too little attention to the ones that are walking out the back!

Whether you're challenged by today's "soft" economy or you've been able to hold your own, one thing's for sure: Customer Loyalty remains the key to your business success. Your customers ARE your bottom line. And if their business goes elsewhere, so will your profits!

This handbook will help you prevent that!

The proven concepts found in these pages will heighten everyone's awareness of the importance of Customer Loyalty ... and equip them with techniques and strategies for building it.

Average customer rating:

Implement this book!

Building the Customer Specific Retail Enterprise
Gary Hawkins
Manufacturer: Breezy Heights Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Intelligence

Customer Specific Marketing

Loyalty Marketing: The Second Act

ASIN: 0967256208

Book Description

The understanding and use of customer information as gathered through retail frequent shopper programs has forever changed the retail playing field. Yet many retailers are not using this information strategically, putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage and leaving untold profits on the table. And many packaged goods and private label manufacturers have yet to grasp the powerful implications of this information for their own businesses.

In this groundbreaking book, Gary Hawkins, a worldwide authority on information enabled retailing, takes you step-by-step through the concepts and techniques of building a customer specific enterprise. He shows you how your frequent shopper program can become a powerful vehicle to segment your customer base, target your marketing efforts and maximize your profitability. Key strategies such as Customer Category Management and Yield Management are discussed, complete with charts and graphs to illustrate key points.

Examples of world-class customer specific retailers are used throughout to demonstrate these strategies at work.

Customer Reviews:

Implement this book!.......2001-08-11

This is a fabulous resource for "mining" your best customers.

We have a great customer specific marketing system now with over 80% of our dollars coming from our "preferred customers" who have a card. We are a specialty high end retailer, not a supermarket. We are an independent, with only two stores in our market, and this type of marketing is great for us!

This book can take someone just starting to a new level. The book is heavily about supermarkets, but there are valuable lessons to be learned if you are not a supermarket. For example, we began to mail to our best customers, as this book recommended, and had a good increase in sales.

If you study this book, you can find out which customers bought from you in the past and have dropped off. You can pinpoint the "gold" customers and find ways to reach them.

This book takes customer specific marketing to a new level. The comments and practical resarch in the book are great.

There are many other points that this book brings out. For example, if a Walmart or other very price competitive store comes in your area, what do you do? You don't just depend on the data based marketing procedure you have. We learned this lesson the hard way last Fall, before I read this book.

Amazon.com

As businesses have overcome technical, financial, and promotional hurdles to developing online commerce, they are now confronted with the core issue of all businesses in a competitive market: providing quality and cost-effective customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Jim Sterne, who led the pack in the earlier stages of Net commerce with his book World Wide Web Marketing, has written a book that every company using the Net should consider giving to every employee involved in online commerce. Contains great practical information, case studies of companies that have paid attention to online customer service (and are doing well because of this attention), and an appreciation for the critical edge provided by caring about your customers.

Book Description

A comprehensive guide to taking full advantage of the Internet for customer care
A dynamic customer service Web site can dramatically increase customer loyalty and provide a competitive edge that all companies strive to achieve. But in order to run a successful site, you must know the latest technologies and understand how to integrate them into your business strategy. Written by internationally recognized Web marketing expert Jim Sterne, this book clearly explains these technologies and demonstrates how companies of all sizes can use them to create and maintain cutting-edge customer service sites.
Completely updated for today's technically-savvy readers, this Second Edition covers all the bases. You'll learn the steps needed to make the transition from your current customer support to the Web. You'll also find valuable information on how to improve your existing site in order to save money and provide better quality support. And with the help of numerous case studies from a variety of different industries, you'll discover how other companies create and maintain their Web sites.
This book will help you:
* Create a service plan that takes full advantage of the Web's potential
* Determine the best way to present your company's information on the Web
* Effectively manage e-mail
* Find out exactly what your customers want and measure their satisfaction
* Examine how others are using networked computer communications
* Utilize extranets to lock in customers and channel partners and lock out competitors
Visit our Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/

Customer Reviews:

good information.......2001-08-14

has wide info about customer service in internet. but not exactly what i'm looking: how to build customer service web based application. but the book gave me some insight on situation around servicing customer in internet.

A good starting point.......2000-12-04

One of a very limited number of titles, as far as Internet customer service is concerned, a good starting point for throwing up ideas, although I felt it lacked a basic frame for somebody who was new to the net and looking to establish customer service procedures. As with any text written about technology, one would have to question how current the information was, although I apreciate this would be out of the control of the author. My only other problem was that I thought allot of time was dedicated to the interests of large firms, for example a big section was dedicated to setting up and monitoring disscusion groups, important and usefull sources of information yes, but not a realistic part of a website for a small company, more your major computer business etc. All in all though considering the limited number of titles available, (about two as I write this, including this one) if you have a spare £20 its better than nothing!

It's Customer Service, Jim, but not as we know it..........2000-09-19

One of the most unpredictable things the Internet achieved was to re-define customer service. One of the first people to notice and to write a book about how to do it in the mid-1990s was Jim Sterne. It's just been updated in this second edition.

In the real world, you can pay lip service to customer service and the resultant damage is hidden in the anonymous attrition of customers wandering away to the competition with a sigh and a shake of the head.

The Internet, however, is a ruthless amplifier of weakness in business process. Answer a snail mail letter from a customer within two weeks and they might be satisfied. Fail to answer the email the same customer sends you from your website within four hours and they're already fuming at you for your disinterest in them. As all those surveys about customer dis-satisfaction with websites relentlessly show, it's about service, stupid.

Before going further, I have to declare a bias here: I first became a fan of Jim Sterne when I saw him give a talk in which he illustrated how to use interactivity and personalisation to achieve web `stickiness'. Sterne chose the unlikely-sounding Clairol site - the hair and beauty products company. It allows you to post a digital photo of yourself on the site and then try on several different hairstyles.

The hairstyles come in the form of `virtual wigs' that you stick on your digital head. Sterne had tested the site and showed his audience the result, throwing up a slide of himself, bearded, tie-and-jacket-wearing, grinning defiantly from underneath a long blonde wig. It took several minutes for the audience to recover.

Sterne's wit and his relentless honesty are a powerful combination and come through in this book as much as in person, to make this an entertaining as well as informative read. Honesty? Too many Internet authors revel in complexity. Sterne de-mystifies and de-bunks, using an intentionally naïve-looking approach.

For example, in the book he asks a couple of experts to explain what the modish CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is all about, allowing the differences in their answers, which he produces verbatim, to show that the software industry is all over the place in trying to define CRM, energetically re-branding everything in sight. Salesforce Automation? Nah, that was last year. This year we're calling it CRM...

As well as offering unbiased commentary to help you steer through the maze of software and solutions on offer from the IT vendor community, Sterne takes you step by step through the basics, with impressive attention to detail.

The chapter on managing email, for example, is forty-five pages long and packed with examples of how to get it right (and wrong).

What makes the nuts and bolts `how tos' in this book so compelling is the lacerating wit that Sterne uses to deal with those who get it wrong. There's a four-page evisceration of Volvo Cars, for example, for consistently failing to allow customers to email complaints about their cars through the company's website. Sterne catalogues the failures mercilessly, before concluding: "Volvo has tried to open a receptive ear to the public, but it forgot the Q-Tips".

As well as acting as a manual for developing effective email practises, the book shows you in detail the best ways of approaching now traditional customer help mechanisms like Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs), how to let customers talk to each other to provide you with vital market knowledge, how to practise personalisation and get to know customers as individuals, and - all-importantly - how to develop measurements that allow you to translate the success of your customer service initiatives into loyalty and retention figures that the Finance Director will listen to.

If you want to learn from Jim face to face, and can make it to London this Fall, Jim will be giving two Masterclasses on 11 and 12 October 2000 on how to do this Internet customer service stuff better. (Email Phil@eCustomerServiceWorld.com for details). I was hoping to conclude with a criticism - that the built-in problem with a book like this is that it becomes redundant as soon as it is in print, as the toddler that is web customer service grows up fast to become a spotty adolescent. The past couple of months, for example, have seen a wave of `assisted buying' software solutions break onto the market which further blur the sales/service departmental divide (a functional business divide that is everywhere in the real world but which, as Sterne shows, does not translate to the Web).

But, there are too many universal fundamentals covered in this book for that criticism to hold true. And, as hard as I tried to find examples of outdated material, this is one of those rarities, a thoroughly updated second edition of a book.

For specialist and for beginners.......2000-07-21

I think that this book is really, really useful for peopleworking in Customer Service Deps of firms dealing with the USA market(according to Cross Cultural Managemet rules, there are some differences on how You have to run a customer service dep:it dipend by the market You are dealing with, and this books is, in my opinion, very useful for firms dealing in the USA market) Not only Customer Service rules, but tons of examples (i.e. there are a lot of links to e-firms, how their Customer Service works, and so) I'm Italian and I manage the Customer Service dept of [...]; I think that, thanks to Jim Sterne, the quality of our Customer Service will surely improve: thank You!

A good look at customer service on the Net........1999-10-26

This is a good basic book to have on Internet customer service. I've been on the Internet side of customer service for 4 years now and find the insight Sterne provides well thought out. Some of the material is dated, as we service now moves at Internet speed.

Average customer rating:

For strategic thinker
Text book - descriptive but not informative
At last ... a reference source for CRM I can really use
An Information Packed Resource on Advanced CRM
Not bad, but buyer beware!

The Ultimate CRM Handbook : Strategies and Concepts for Building Enduring Customer Loyalty and Profitability
John Freeland
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0071409351

Book Description

sA hands-on guidebook from Accenture for building a globally responsive, customer-driven enterprise

As the dust settles from the most recent round of CRM projects, companies are increasingly finding that their efforts havenot delivered anticipated benefits. In The Ultimate CRM Handbook, influential thought leaders from Accenture discuss why CRM has failed to live up to expectations and what companies can do to improve the bottom-line return on CRM investments.

More than 30 chapters and in-depth case studies on many leading companies give managers and senior executives alike the high-level perspective needed to build lasting, profitable bonds with their customers. They also provide techniques companies can use to:

Establish more effective interactions with their customers
Build lasting brand loyalty
Dramatically improve the efficiency of their sales, marketing, and customer service operations

Customer Reviews:

For strategic thinker.......2006-08-18

This book covers every aspect of CRM, on sales and marketing and information technology. Don't expect this book will teach you how to implement it. Please notice that this is not mean to be a technical book, which teaches you how to caculate customer life-time, segmentation or select customers. It outline the technologies and marketing ideas surrouding the buzz word-CRM. Come on. CRM is not the name of a software package, it's about satisfying your customers profitabily.

If you have the interest to drill further, esp the maths/IT, read other books on datamining or database marketing.

Text book - descriptive but not informative.......2005-08-02

I had to purchase this book for a class I'm taking towards my MBA. I have to say that I have yet to read anything in it that isn't just a summary of information I've heard or read before - or even something that's just intuitive for anyone that's been in the business world for just a few years.

Had I known this book would provide such little insight into the underlying strategies and applications of CRM, and would therefore not even be necessary to read in order to write papers or join in discussions for my class, I would not have purchased it.

At last ... a reference source for CRM I can really use.......2003-01-24

This is the third book on CRM I've read over the last year and it's certainly been the most useful.

The structure is a little different from other books I've seen on the subject. I guess you could read it end-to-end, but I've found it most useful just reading the section introductions and then dipping into the individual chapters as required. Being honest, I haven't even read all of the content. It's very comprehensive and some of the material just isn't relevant to my work. But the fact I can get to the parts that are relevant, quickly and easily, is what makes this stand out.

Coming from a business background, I also like level it's pitched at. Despite being pretty detailed at times the text is peppered with client examples to show the ideas are still grounded in reality.

So if you are looking for a broad reference source for CRM that puts the emphasis on business as much as CRM then this is certainly worth considering.

An Information Packed Resource on Advanced CRM.......2003-01-16

If you are looking for an information packed resource on advanced CRM ideas and strategies, then I would strongly recommend this book. I own a dozen texts on this subject and this book is one of the best at presenting the key concepts that define state-of-the-art CRM.

I found the chapters on transforming marketing paticularrly interesting. Together, they provided a comprehensive picture of the current challenges in marketing and then discussed the new capabilities marketers should embrace to transform their organizations.

In addition to the wealth of ideas, the book was also filled with industry examples that really helped to bring the topics to life for me. I definitely give this book an enthusiastic two thumbs up.

Not bad, but buyer beware!.......2003-01-03

This is not a bad book and contains some helpful insights in CRM. The chapters on Partner Relationship Management and CRM in Government are particularly good.

However, the title (a shameless ripoff of The CRM Handbook--couldn't the guys at McGraw Hill be a BIT more creative?)doesn't make it obvious that the writers are all Accenture consultants. This book definitely has an Accenture spin (results of Accenture surveys, examples using Accenture partner companies), rendering it a bit more narrowly-focused that it might have been by a more "objective" authorship. And, as is usually the case with a book where each chapter has a different author, the tone of the text varies widely. This is a good book for your CRM library, but be sure and co-mingle it with other CRM perspective so your view isn't tainted.

Average customer rating:

For any family with young children this is a must read.

Building Customer Loyalty
Barabara Glanz
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Effective Teamwork

Customer Service Excellence

ASIN: 0786302534

Book Description

no description

Customer Reviews:

For any family with young children this is a must read........1999-03-27

Barbara's books are all wonderful, but this one tops the list. Any family with young children should make this a must reading. The numbers and quality of creative ideas for raising children to become curious and well-rounded is astounding.

Customer Equity: Building and Managing Relationships As Valuable Assets

Average customer rating:

First rate and highly practical
Wrong Perspective
Fails to Advance Ideas and Understanding of the Topic
Disappointment
Disappointment

Customer Equity: Building and Managing Relationships As Valuable Assets
Robert C. Blattberg , Gary Getz , and Jacquelyn S. Thomas
Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0875847641

Book Description

What's a customer worth? The company that can answer this question precisely is the company with an edge in the customer-based, technology- and information-intensive economy of today. But how can an asset as intangible as customer value be measured? This timely book provides a solution: a fully developed, highly practical new marketing system for measuring and managing customer value as a financial asset-a system uniquely suited to today's rapidly changing, increasingly digital marketplace.

How has the management-or mismanagement-of customer assets played into the successes, failures, at-risk status, or Cinderella stories of GM, Amazon, AOL Time Warner, FedEx, the U. S. Armed Forces, Oprah, Bluefly.com, and Harley Davidson? Drawing on these and other examples, the authors explain the strategies and tactics that make customer equity management work. They outline customer equity's three core strategies-customer acquisition, customer retention, and add-on selling-and the balance among them, and explain how the customer life cycle affects strategy and the marketing mix. Detailed, how-to chapters follow, clearly mapping out methods and practices for organizational restructuring, customer equity measurement, customer equity accounting, database management, and data analysis.

Along with strategic and tactical guidance, Customer Equity provides precise metrics for evaluating a business more effectively and improving performance- the "activity-based management" of a company's marketplace. The authors present a new framework for structuring go-to-market activities that links those activities to useful metrics and allows better-informed marketing decisions.

Marking a decisive move away from the traditional focus on mass marketing and brand equity, Customer Equity equips companies with the knowledge to manage customer portfolios across segments and over time, and gives marketers the means to lengthen customer life cycles, tailor the marketing mix, optimize cross-functional operations, and balance customer acquisition and retention. In doing so, Customer Equity enhances the ability of marketers, IT professionals, senior executives, and managers to make better decisions, generate higher profits, and increase shareholder wealth.

Whether for its analysis of emerging marketing trends, blueprints for effective customer equity management, or practical advice and guidelines for implementing and using this new system, Customer Equity is the book companies and marketers must consult if they hope to acquire and retain the most attractive customers-and the competitive edge in today's marketplace.

For more information on the topics in this book, go to the Web site www.customerequity.com.

Robert C. Blattberg is a Professor at Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Chicago. Gary Getz is a Managing Principal at Integral, Inc. in Northern California. Jacquelyn S. Thomas is a Professor at Emory's Goizueta School of Business in Atlanta.

Customer Reviews:

First rate and highly practical.......2006-07-05

Want to know about customer equity this is it, the definitive guide. Full of enough detail to put into practice, a revelation of a business book.

The central idea of a customer as an asset is clearly explained - with actual calculations! Then a framework is developed for putting the central idea into practice.

Almost unique amongst modern business books, this one shows you how to do something difficult in practice, it takes the trouble to show enough detail without being boring.

For more on same theme, try:
- Marketing and the Bottom Line (ISBN: 0273661949)
- Marketing Payback (ISBN: 0273688847)

Wrong Perspective.......2003-05-25

The authors failed to account for value (or equity) being measured from the perspective of the customer (and/or other stakeholders such as employees). It is the percieved equity that a customer holds for the business that entices them to maintain a relationship. It is specifically that equity that businesses should focus on. By studying the dynamics of 'that' equity they can better determine what individuals value and focus resources (where applicable) on making sure the equity is either preserved (elimination of barriers) or enhanced (by exceeding expectations).

Businesses don't exist because they have something to sell. They have something to sell because someone is willing to buy it...they need to spend more time figuring out 'why' and enhancing that aspect of the relationship. It's a 'draw' not a 'push'.

Based on the title I thought they had it right. They didn't.

Fails to Advance Ideas and Understanding of the Topic.......2001-09-28

Although this book is well written, it fails in delivering any new insights, ideas, or analysis. Everything in this book has been tossed around and discussed by both practictioners and academics for atleast three years. Perhaps his book would have been useful a few years ago. The treatment is less rigorous than that by Ronald Rust etc. and it also doesn't go much beyond what they already said in there in book.

Disappointment.......2001-08-04

I purchased this book looking for insight, but merely found a collection of common practices and ideas. What makes this so disappointing, is the quality of Blattberg's previous works is excellent, I fear that this subject matter has passed him by.

Anyone looking for a fresh perspective or actual insight for the marketplace, try Roland Rust.

Disappointment.......2001-08-04

Product Description

The Construction Business provides a broad, yet comprehensive overview of the current and future state of construction, including Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, the impact of residential construction, and how to handle rising fuel and energy costs. This book features presidents and CEOs from some of the top construction companies in the country, discussing such topics as key strategies in pricing and the bidding process, generating revenues and profits, deciding when to add or lose a product, and allocating resources in accordance with market fluctuation. These industry leaders raise critical points around the essentiality of positive, lasting relationships with employees and customers, including their strategies for employee engagement and building customer loyalty. The different niches represented and breadth of perspectives presented allow readers to get inside some of the great innovative minds of today, as leaders explore in detail what it takes to secure long! -term success in construction. For anyone seeking greater insight into this ever-evolving industry, The Construction Business is truly an indispensable resource. Chapters include: 1. William G. Currie, Vice Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Universal Forest Products Inc., The Construction Industry: Essentials to Success; 2. Stephen J. Senkowski, Executive Vice President, Armstrong World Industries Inc., The Construction Industry Today: What Companies Need to Be Successful; 3. William G. Dorey, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Granite Construction Incorporated, Vision for the Construction Industry; 4. Stephen G. Hanks, President and Chief Executive Officer, Washington Group International, Achieving Success in the Construction Industry.

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